


Alone Together

by acedavestrider



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Autistic Dave Strider, M/M, hard of hearing karkat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 13:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17326058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acedavestrider/pseuds/acedavestrider
Summary: You let out a sigh, and your breath fogs in front of your face, mixing with Dave’s cigarette smoke. “I guess we’re both alone then.”Dave finally turns to look at you, striking brown eyes connecting with yours, and you’re so startled to meet his gaze that your breath floods out of your chest all at once. When he speaks you can feel it in your gut.“Let’s be alone together.”





	Alone Together

**Author's Note:**

> commission for silvervictory on tumblr!

“Shit,” you say as the bottom of the box in your arms opens up and dumps its contents onto the floor. “Fuck!” 

You throw the now empty cardboard onto the floor and bend down to scoop up everything that fell out. You’re pissed, but you’re also glad it isn’t your kitchenware or your computer or something equally as breakable. You toss everything back in, a few books and comics that you haven’t read in years, and you stand up again, careful to hold the bottom of the box together this time. You struggle to get through your apartment door because there’s too much shit in your way, boxes and boxes of your belongings blocking your path. 

“Hey,” you hear a voice say behind you. “Need some help?” 

You turn, the contents of the container jostling loudly, and see a tall man standing behind you. He’s wearing a wrinkled button down shirt and tie, with dress pants that are a size too big for him. His eyes are on your hands. 

“Uh, yeah,” you say. “That’d be great.” 

The stranger helps you move your things in for several hours, emptying the back of your pickup truck and moving all the boxes inside, before he even introduces himself. 

“I’m Dave by the way,” he says when you’ve finished. He doesn’t extend his hand until you extend yours first. He tilts his head to the left, in the direction of the hallway. “Live next door.” 

“Karkat, nice to meet you,” you say, and he nods in response. “Thanks for helping me out; I have way more shit than I thought I did.” 

“You never realize how much shit you have until you’ve gotta move it all,” he says with a chuckle.

“No kidding,” you say. “Hey, uh, you wanna come inside? I’ve got shitty coffee and mugs that probably survived the trip.” 

Dave checks his watch and frowns. “Nah, I’ve got some stuff to do,” he tells you. “But I’ll see you around?” 

“Yeah, sure. Thanks again.” 

He nods once then turns to leave, closing the door behind him. You heave a sigh and sit down on the closest box, only to fall through it immediately and then shout a curse into your empty apartment.

* * *

 

You don’t see much of Dave for a few weeks, only occasionally running into him in the laundry room or the lobby. He’s always polite to you but doesn’t usually say much, until you find him on the roof one day after wandering upstairs in the hopes of getting a glimpse of the supermoon. 

He turns suddenly when the roof access door creaks open then slams shut and he seems startled to find anyone else up on the roof. You’re surprised too, you weren’t expecting to see him, but you’re already warming up to the idea of company. You’ve been a little too alone in your studio apartment, and it’s been getting to you. 

“Hey,” Dave greets around the cigarette in his mouth. He offers you the carton. “Want one?” 

“Trying to quit,” you say honestly. You do want one, badly, but you’ve been doing well with cutting back and you’ve already had a few today. You lean on the ledge with him. 

“Oh, sorry.” When he blows smoke out of his mouth he purposely does it away from you. “So what brings you to the roof?” 

You shrug. It feels kind of stupid to tell him you wanted to look at the moon, but you do anyways, and he laughs like he finds it endearing. 

“I don’t follow astronomy shit or anything,” he says. “Does the supermoon mean something special? Besides just being big as hell?” 

“Some people believe it’s the harbinger of misery and destruction,” you say cheerfully. “But mostly… it’s just really fucking big.” 

He chuckles, takes a drag off his cigarette. “Sweet.” 

You smile and watch him for a minute, taking in his appearance. He’s wearing the same button-down shirt you’ve seen him wear several times, but half unbuttoned and with the sleeves rolled up. He looks disheveled and tired, five o’clock shadow shading his face. 

“Man,” he says. He hasn’t noticed you staring, he’s not even looking at you. “I’ve been meaning to get to know you more, to be honest.” 

“Yeah?” you say. “Why haven’t you?” 

“Uh, I,” he starts, but then he changes his mind. “I’m no good at talkin’ to people.” 

“I think you’re doing fine so far,” you tell him. “You haven’t insulted me or told me to get fucked, which is more than I can say about some people.” 

His mouth quirks up in a little grin. “My friends would be proud,” he says. “They’ve been bugging me to get out and meet people more. Spend too much time by myself.” 

“No roommates?” you ask. The apartment he lives in is a two-bedroom, you saw it in the floor plan before you moved in. You kind of figured he’d be sharing the rent with someone. 

“Nah,” he says.  

“Family?” you ask. 

“Not really.” He shrugs. “Just my bro.” 

“Where’s he?” 

“Dead,” Dave says simply. His expression doesn’t change even remotely as he says it, and all he does is take another drag off his cigarette, blow smoke away from your face. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, backtracking. “Didn’t mean to pry.” 

He shrugs again, still looking out over the cityscape rather than at you. “He was kind of a piece of shit,” he explains. “I’m not super beat up over it, you know?” 

“Oh,” is all you say, because you’re not sure what’s acceptable and what’s not. You don’t want to push him. 

“What about you?” he asks in your silence. He still won’t look at you. “Friends? Family?” 

“A few friends,” you say honestly. “No family.” 

“None?” 

“It was just me and my dad when I was a kid,” you explain. You really want a cigarette. “He died a while back. Cancer.” 

“Shit,” Dave says, eyebrows crooking up. “That sucks, man.” 

“Yeah,” you mutter. You let out a sigh, and your breath fogs in front of your face, mixing with Dave’s cigarette smoke. “I guess we’re both alone then.” 

Dave finally turns to look at you, striking brown eyes connecting with yours, and you’re so startled to meet his gaze that your breath floods out of your chest all at once. When he speaks you can feel it in your gut. 

“Let’s be alone together.”

* * *

 

The roof becomes a common spot for you and Dave to see each other. You don’t actually plan to meet up together, it just kind of happens that way. Dave is normally upstairs in the evening, presumably after he gets back from work, and you sort of just start to show up as well. He never expresses any discomfort at your presence, and when you start bringing beer with you he lightens up considerably. 

Dave likes to talk. You’re not sure if he just enjoys talking to you specifically, or if he’ll blabber on to just about anyone, but you like to listen regardless. He doesn’t tell you anything particularly noteworthy, just little things about his life, his job. He’s normally wearing his office clothes when you see him, and you learn that he works a typical nine to five, doing boring work that he hates. You tell him about the column you write in return and he occasionally looks you in the eyes as you speak. 

“I’m having some friends over tomorrow,” you tell him one day. “You’re more than welcome to come.” 

His brows twitch for a second as if you said something surprising, but he agrees anyways. 

You see him that Saturday and open the door after his polite knock raps against the wood a little after one in the afternoon. He’s a bit late, everyone has already shown up, but you don’t really mind. You’re more focused on what he’s wearing; it’s the first time you’ve seen him in casual clothes. He’s in a simple t-shirt and jeans, but he’s also wearing reflective, black sunglasses for some reason. 

“Hey,” you greet with a smile. You’re happy to see him. “Come on in.” 

He seems uncomfortable, but comes inside nonetheless to an uproarious crowd of people. You’ve got a lot of friends crammed into your small apartment and you realize that for someone like Dave, who is a self-proclaimed introvert, it might be a little overwhelming. 

You keep your eye on him as you introduce him to everyone, but you can’t really read his expression behind the glasses. He seems okay, saying hello to everyone politely, and he sits down next to Terezi with little fanfare. You’re glad he chose to sit next to her rather than Vriska or, god forbid, Eridan, and it makes you feel a little less nervous. 

Terezi gets into his personal space immediately and takes a large sniff of him. “You smell like a nice guy, Dave,” she announces. 

“Uh, thanks?” Dave says, confused. “You smell pretty cool, too. I guess.” 

“I like him,” Terezi says, addressing you with a big grin. 

You watch the two of them interact for a bit, occasionally interjecting your own thoughts into their conversation, until you notice how much Dave is fidgeting. He seems to be getting along with Terezi, but he’s tapping his feet and hands pretty incessantly, making little beats against his thighs and the wooden floor. He only ceases his tapping to momentarily shake out his hands like he’s gotten a cramp, then resumes the motion immediately. You don’t think much of it, and chalk it up to the nerves he must be feeling around so many new people. 

You stick close by Dave for the rest of the event, though you still try to interact with everyone as much as you can. Sollux makes fun of your shitty apartment and Aradia tells him to stop, while Eridan tries to give you life advice and Feferi asks if you’ve lost weight. Vriska pointedly ignores you and Terezi ropes you into playing Would You Rather with her and Dave for half an hour. You have fun, but the whole time, everyone sounds like they’re far away from you, their voices just suppressed enough that you notice it. You make a reminder to clean your ears out later, and don’t think much else of it. 

Dave sticks around after everyone leaves to help you clean up, your friends having left food and drink containers everywhere like wild animals. He quietly beatboxes under his breath as he shoves paper plates and plastic cups into a trash bag and you nod your head along to the music he makes. Afterwards he joins you on the couch, tired, though still tapping his hands on the tops of his thighs. 

He doesn’t speak for a long time, and when he does it’s, “Sorry.” 

Your brows furrow. “For what?” you ask. “You just helped me clean my entire apartment. My disgusting friends should be the ones who are sorry, it’s like they were all raised in the fucking woods.” 

“Nah, it’s not that, I just…” He pauses, taps his feet. “I know I’m hella fucking awkward pretty much always, and I didn’t really click with anyone besides Terezi.” 

“Listen, don’t worry about that,” you try to reassure him. “To be honest, half of the people who showed up don’t even like me and just came because their significant other convinced them to.” 

This makes Dave chuckle and he turns to you with a little smile. “Hey if you’re not too tired can I show you something in my apartment?” he asks. “I swear it’s not like a dead body or a torture chamber or something.” 

You are tired, but you want to go anyways; you like spending time with Dave. “Sure,” you say, and you follow him across the hall to his place. 

It’s the first time you’ve been inside Dave’s apartment in the couple months you’ve known him, and you’re met with an exceptionally normal but exceptionally messy place. It’s not disgusting, there’s no rotting food or anything, there’s just a lot of… stuff. You see books and clothes everywhere, old CD’s and movie boxes scattered across the living room, along with half dead plants and a ton of electronic devices. 

“Sorry there’s so much shit everywhere,” Dave apologizes. “I don’t usually like… have people over.” He steps over a couple haphazardly placed items and leads you down a hallway. “Stuff’s this way.” 

You follow Dave until the two of you come to a stop in front of a door, underneath of which red light is emitting. You squint at it, confused, and Dave just smiles and leads the way inside. 

“Welcome to my studio,” he announces with a grin. 

It takes you a moment to realize it’s a darkroom for developing photos, not just a strange room full of odd machinery and red lights, and you notice that it’s the converted second bedroom of his apartment. Dave seems thrilled to show you everything, and walks you through the process of how he takes and develops his pictures. He props his sunglasses up on the top of his head so he can see properly and guides you through the room to show you the proper way to use a few different machines, even letting you try a few of them out. 

There are a few photos processing in pools of chemicals, and Dave carefully takes one out to show you. He shakes it around a bit to dry it off, then holds it up for you to see. It’s just a landscape, but the composition is stunning. 

“Dave, this is beautiful,” you tell him. 

He shies away from you for a second, rolls his shoulders back. “Thanks,” he says simply, then proceeds to tell you all about the picture. He clearly remembers the day he took it, the place where it was taken, the settings on his camera. The entire time he speaks he’s shaking the picture around with one hand and tapping his other hand on his thigh, and as much as you love to hear him talk you start to get distracted. 

After a few minutes, you have to interrupt him with a hand on his wrist. “Are you okay?” you ask. 

Dave just looks at you for a second with his mouth open. “Yeah, sorry,” he says finally, quiet. His voice sounds muffled, like someone has clamped their hands over your ears. “Sometimes there’s just too much shit and I gotta,” he shakes his hands out like you saw him do earlier, “you know?” 

You don’t, not really, but you nod anyways. “Yeah, I get it,” you say. 

“Cool,” he says with a nod. “If it bugs you I can stop.” 

You shrug and shake your head, and the two of you get back to looking at Dave’s photos. In reality, his movements don’t bother you at all. You don’t think he could bother you if he tried; you like hanging out with him too much.

* * *

 

You start to get more used to Dave’s quirks the more you’re around him. Something he starts to do when the weather gets colder and you start to wear more sweaters is rub the fabric of your shirt between his fingers. He’ll stand real close to you when you hang out on the roof together and just rub your arm or your shoulder, feeling the fabric for minutes at a time. Some sweaters he doesn’t like, says they’re too itchy, so you stop wearing them in favor of the softer ones. 

You’re standing together on the roof one night, his arm looped around yours so he can rub the soft material of your sweater, when suddenly a shiver ripples through him. He’s just wearing his work shirt with no jacket, despite it being fairly cold out. 

“Cold?” you ask. “We can call it a night, if you want.” 

“Nah, I’m good,” he says, though he trembles again. 

You squint at him. He’s clearly cold in just his shirt, but doesn’t want to voice it. The more time you spend with Dave the more you’ve noticed that about him; he’ll keep his feelings to himself and leave you to kind of figure it out on your own, whether it’s him being cold or something else. It’s made things on your end just a little difficult, especially when it comes to gauging his feelings for you. 

It’s been a couple months since the party, even longer since coming to the roof together became commonplace, and you’re starting to feel something you haven’t dealt with in a while; there’s stirring in your lower stomach and a flutter in your chest when you’re around Dave more and more these days. It freaks you out a little; it’s been so long since you’ve had feelings for someone, and Dave is so opaque you can’t be sure what he feels for you, if anything. You like to think you’re friends, despite how much you’re starting to wish you were more. 

Dave’s fingers have stopped messing with your sweater, and are instead sitting gently on top of your hand, tapping away. You feel warm next to him, warm from him touching you, warm from talking to him. 

“Let’s go back to my place,” you say. When you realize it sounds a little suggestive, you clarify, “We can watch a movie or something.” 

“I like movies,” he says, which you guess is a confirmation because he moves away from the ledge and starts for the door. You think he was just waiting for an excuse to get off the roof. 

You head down to your apartment together and Dave sits on the couch, arms wrapped around his body, while you rifle around for a DVD to watch. You know Dave doesn’t really like romantic comedies - you’ve had extensive discussions about movies in the few months you’ve known him - but he does like a good superhero movie, and you have plenty of those. 

You pop in a Marvel film and join Dave on the couch. As the beginning previews start and you look around for the remote to turn the volume up so you can hear better, you spot something on the coffee table that you’ve been meaning to give Dave for a few weeks now. It’s a fidget device, a little cube with different buttons and dials on it for people who have trouble sitting still and when you saw it on Amazon one day, you thought of Dave instantly. You pick it up and hand it to him. 

“Here,” you say simply. “Saw this the other day and thought of you.” 

He holds up the device with slender fingers and examines it, turning it this way and that and pressing all the buttons. “You… got this for me?” he asks. He sounds like he doesn’t believe you. 

“Yeah,” you say with a little shrug. “It reminded me of you.” 

Dave sits back against the couch and just holds the cube for a while, staring at it while the movie starts to play. It’s only about fifteen minutes in that he mutters, “Thanks,” in a thick voice and you wonder when the last time anyone did something nice for him was.

* * *

 

Your feelings for Dave grow as your friendship continues, as the two of you watch winter give way into spring from your vantage point on the roof. You fall into a comfortable routine together, hanging out upstairs and, when the weather is unforgiving, in one of your apartments. You watch movies together, and Dave shows you his photos, and you fall harder for him. 

Dave is a steady rock in your life; when your job feels like it’s going to shit, when you can barely make your rent, when you feel like everything is falling apart, Dave is there to offer you a cigarette on the roof, or rub his hand on your arm to calm you down, or drink a beer with you and listen to you lament. You’re so grateful for him it hurts sometimes, and you wish you had the eloquence to properly thank him. 

You like to think you’re occasionally the same rock for Dave. He has the habit of ranting about things almost as much as you do, and sometimes the two of you end up speaking over each other when you’re both in particularly talkative moods. But you’re there for him when he wants to tell you more serious stuff, like things about his brother. 

When Dave opens up to you, he does it in short bursts, giving you pieces of information here and there. Stuff regarding his brother you get in bits, and under layers of metaphors and confusing language, so you’re left to put things together on you own, and you’re not very happy with the picture you end up with. 

“I’m okay now,” Dave tells you one day, after dumping a lot of disturbing information on you. “Or I will be. One day.” 

When you don’t speak, mouth opening and closing uselessly as you process what he told you, he puts a comforting hand on your shoulder. 

“We’re both gonna be okay, Karkat,” he says sincerely. “Just because we were fucked up as kids doesn’t mean we have to be fucked up as adults.” 

You smile at him, because he’s right, and you like him so much it hurts. 

You haven’t mentioned your feelings to Dave, not yet. You’re afraid of pushing him, of surprising him with how you feel, and the last thing you want is for him to feel pressured to go out with you just because you’re friends. But the longer you wait, the more you fear you’ll never have the guts to make a move. You can’t believe you’re having this problem at almost thirty years old. 

Miraculously, the problem solves itself. 

You’re standing on the roof together near the start of summer when Dave turns to you, plucks the cigarette you’re smoking out of your mouth, and puts it between his own lips. It’s commonplace for you to share cigarettes these days, passing one or two back and forth. Your own efforts to quit have reached Dave, and you’ve both cut back considerably since you met almost a year ago. 

“Hey,” he says around the cigarette. Smoke pours out of the corner of his mouth. “You wanna have dinner at my place tomorrow? I’ll cook.” 

You shrug, not thinking much of the suggestion. You’ve been to Dave’s apartment a million times before and gotten Chinese takeout with him, so you figure this won’t be much different. 

“Yeah, sounds good.” 

“Sweet,” he says and takes a long drag. Then he adds, muffled and far away, “Don’t be late.” 

To your surprise, Dave is nicely dressed and sunglasses free when you meet him the next day for dinner. You feel significantly underdressed in your t-shirt and jeans and a little nervous as he greets you with a “Hey man.” 

Dinner consists of steak and potatoes, and you insist on helping Dave despite him not really needing it. He’s a good cook, and chats with you about recipes and the like as he prepares the food, humming intermittently during lapses in conversation. 

You eat at his dining table instead of on the couch or in front of the TV and you’re amazed at how good the food is. It takes the two of you a long time to finish dinner, as you’re too busy talking to each other and barely have time to eat between sentences. After dinner you share dessert, laughing together over a tub of ice cream at Dave’s kitchen island. 

When your conversation starts to get interrupted by your yawning, Dave suggests you call it a night. You say your goodbyes at his door and you’re about to leave when he stops you. 

“Hey, would it be cool if I kissed you?” he asks, completely serious. “That’s what people do on dates right? I was kind of waiting for you to do it but you’ve been leaving me hanging.” 

You look at him, stunned. Your heart is racing. All your brain can formulate is, “This was a date?” 

Dave gives you a confused look. “Yeah, dude, I told you it was, remember?” 

“I thought you said…” You must have misheard him before when he told you not to be late. “I didn’t know this was a date!” 

You regret saying it the moment it’s out of your mouth, and you know Dave immediately misinterprets your exclamation when he frowns and his brows furrow. You’re such an idiot. Your mouth opens and closes as you try to find the words to articulate that you do like him, and that you’re not dismissing the apparent feelings he has for you. 

Dave starts to blabber on about how you don’t have to hang out with him anymore if you don’t want to and he cracks a few jokes here and there during his ranting to make it seem like he’s not upset. But you can tell he’s not as nonchalant as he’d like to be, and you have to interrupt him after one too many sarcastic one-liners. 

“I…” You wish you were better at talking. You stutter uselessly for a few seconds before landing on, “I would be fucking thrilled if you kissed me.” 

Dave’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline from where they were furrowed at his forehead. “Really?” 

You nod, holding in a nervous laugh at his surprise, and Dave puts his hands on either side of your face in preparation. He smiles before leaning in, and presses his lips to yours in a short kiss. He tries to pull away after just a second but you chase after him to kiss him again, properly this time. A muffled sound escapes from his throat and his hands migrate from your face to your hips, where warm fingers sneak under the hem of your shirt. 

When you finally pull away, breath stolen from your chest, Dave gives you the biggest smile you’ve ever seen from him.

* * *

 

You don’t jump into a relationship right away, but gradually. At first, things are basically the same as they have been for the last year or so; the two of you frequently meet on the roof, hang out with each other in your respective apartments, and share the deepest intricacies of your lives. The only difference is that you kiss a little more often, a peck here or a kiss on the cheek there. 

When Dave wants to, he can be quite the affectionate guy. He starts to touch you more often, going from rubbing his hands on your sweaters to resting his palms on the thighs of your pants, even linking his fingers through yours when his hands are still enough. You’re a bit shorter than him and sometimes on the roof, when you’ve curled in on yourself from the wind, he’ll wrap an arm around your shoulder and pull you towards him to warm you up. You fit perfectly under his arm, and can tuck your head underneath his chin. Dave’s side quickly become your favorite place. 

You don’t talk about exclusivity for a few weeks, enjoying the simple comforts of each other’s presence instead. When you do talk about it, you find that you’re actually on the same page. Dave wants a relationship with you and was just too scared to voice it, afraid of possibly messing up the comfortable routine you’d settled into. You’re thrilled to hear him say he wants to be with you, however quiet and shy he may say it, and you jump into his arms, kiss him silly. 

Your routine shifts afterwards, ever so slightly. You see Dave begin to open up like a flower and point himself toward you like you’re sunshine. He starts to talk more openly, laugh more freely, be more genuinely himself. The more time you spend with him, the more you fall for him, even through his worst moments, when his past affects his present and he can’t keep his mind straight. And Dave is there for you, arms open to receive you as you need them, no matter how bad the situation is. He’s always there, a steady beacon, and you’re so grateful for him it chokes you up, compresses your chest. 

Dates become more common for the two of you as well, and you both make an effort to see each other as much as you can, even if it’s just on the roof or in one of your apartments. Work doesn’t always let up for you, but you go out when you can, and you make it work, together. 

You’re sitting together at a table in a nice restaurant for date night one week, telling Dave about a column you had to write for work, when he interrupts you with a hand on your shoulder. 

“Babe,” he says, a familiar nickname by now. “I love to hear you talk but I don’t think the whole restaurant needs to hear you.” 

You close your mouth, a little confused. “What are you talking about?” 

Dave gives you this look like he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings, but has to pull the plug. “You’re kinda yelling?” he says, shoulders shrugging up to his ears. 

“Oh,” you say, and sit back against your chair. Dave takes your hand. 

“I think you should consider getting hearing aids.” When you begin to protest, he holds up his free hand and interrupts you. “Before you get upset, I’ve already done the research and we can get some at the pharmacy without a script.” 

“I don’t… I don’t  _ need _ a hearing aid,” you argue, but you know it’s not true. “I can hear fine.” 

“You misunderstand me pretty often, babe,” Dave reminds you. “And the TV? The volume is so loud some nights I can hear it through the wall, and you ask me to repeat shit all the time because you can’t hear me and I just… I think it would help.”  

It takes a lot of convincing but eventually you concede, and the next day Dave drives you to the local pharmacy to pick up a pair of hearing aids. He stays with you as you try them and turn them on for the first time. There’s a crackling at first, and then a woosh as sound starts to come through the devices, clear as day. 

“How are they?” Dave asks, and he doesn’t sound like he’s mumbling or standing far away from you for once. “Karkat?” 

You’re stunned; you had no idea how bad your hearing had gotten. You can hear Dave clearly, finally, after months of only hearing him through a cotton filter. You didn’t realize how much you missed properly hearing his voice, how smooth and kind it is. Tears prick at your eyes and as you blink them away Dave gives you a concerned look. 

“Babe?” he says, approaching you. 

You fall into his arms as he opens them, and hold back your tears with your face in his chest. He chuckles good-naturedly and runs a hand through your hair, the other patting your back in intermittent beats. 

“Thanks,” you tell him, only when you’re confident that your voice will work. And then, without thinking about it, “I love you.” 

With only a heartbeat of a pause, Dave says, “I love you, too,” and when his lips press into yours, it’s with a smile.

* * *

 

“Look, I love you, but you have way too much shit,” Dave comments, hauling a box off the floor. “Like where were you even keeping all this?” 

“I have no fucking idea,” you say honestly. 

You pick up another box and a bag full of clothes and follow Dave across the hall to his apartment. Boxes are starting to pile up in his living room, creating a haphazard tower, and you have to step around them to put your other things down. 

“I think that was the last of it,” you say, a little out of breath. You sit on the corner of Dave’s coffee table and sigh, exhausted from moving your things, even if it was a short distance. 

“I’m making coffee,” he says definitively. “You want coffee?” 

“Yes please,” you say. You’re so fucked tired. 

Dave gets the Keurig going and in a few minutes he joins you on the coffee table and hands you a steaming mug. Coffee has recently replaced cigarettes for you both, and you’ve been craving a cup all day. You clink your mug against Dave’s and take a deep drink. 

“We should start unpacking,” Dave suggests, though he doesn’t get up except to migrate over to the couch. He has to push some of your shit out of the way to make enough room on the cushions, and he pats the space next to him. 

You use the last bits of your energy to scoot over to the couch with him, and settle under his arm with a sigh. “We should definitely unpack,” you agree, but you don’t move either. 

You drink your coffee and Dave’s hand taps against your hip. Light from the open blinds floods into the room, and you hide your eyes from the bright sunshine in Dave’s neck. He kisses the top of your head and the tapping against your side picks up speed, his hand patting out a beat you recognize as the rhythm he always plays when he can’t sit still. You snuggle closer to him, sip your coffee, and revel in the feeling of contentment pressing into your chest. 

After a few minutes of blissful silence, Dave says, in the softest voice, “I told you we’d be okay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> so ive never written an autistic character or a hard of hearing character but i did some research and got some tips and did my very best! might explore these themes again in the future, and hopefully do an even better job! also this was like........ only kind of beta read so if there are any massive glaring errors please let me know!!
> 
> major thanks to silvervictory for commissioning me!! <33
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @ acedavestrider
> 
> and thanks for reading!! comments are always appreciated!


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